Building a Conservative State: Partisan Polarization and the Redeployment of Administrative Power

Building a Conservative State: Partisan Polarization and the Redeployment of Administrative Power

by Nicholas F. Jacobs, Colby College,Desmond King, University of Oxford and Sidney M. Milkis, University of Virginia

It is commonplace to equate the arrival of a new conservative administration in Washington, DC, with the “rolling back” of the federal activities. We disagree with this conventional perspective, and seek to demonstrate that the equation of conservative Republicanism and retrenchment elides a critical change in the relationship between party politics and State power—a relationship that Donald Trump seems determined to nurture. Drawing on primary research, we argue that partisanship in the United States is no longer a struggle over the size of the State; rather it is a contest to control national administrative power. Since the late 1960s, conservative administrations have sought to redeploy rather than dismantle or roll back state power. Through “redeployment,” conservative presidents have sustained previous levels of State spending or State activity, but in a way reflecting a new administration’s ideology.

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April 26, 2019Comments Off on Press Gallery: APSA Members in the Media

The Week in Writing: April 9 to April 25, 2019 Recent blogs and op-eds authored by APSA members Shutdowns and Their Discontents Josh Chafetz, LegBranch.org, April 9, 2019 The Constitution Doesn’t Say Enough About [...]